Small milestone for Paolo Lorenzi: With his first-round success at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament in Istanbul, the Italian finally holds on to 100 match victories.
Rafael Nadal celebrated not only his eleventh tournament victory on the spot on Sunday in Barcelona, but also his 401st match victory. Alone on ashes. Paolo Lorenzi is baking much smaller rolls, but with his smooth two set victory over Cem Ilkel at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament in Istanbul he has finally reached the triple digits. 100 victories, cumulated over all documents. And 58 of them on sand.
The 36-year-old Roman by birth had his first tournament triumph in Kitzbühel two years ago, in 2015 Lorenzi was already in 33rd place in the ATP world rankings. At the moment he is in position 76, in Istanbul he is not one of the favourites.
Especially as Marin Cilic, the defending champion from Croatia, arrives as a new husband and is the only participant to bring a single-digit ranking to Istanbul. Paolo Lorenzi starts his attack on the second hundred against the Argentine Marco Trungelliti, in the round for it compatriot Andreas Seppi could wait.
Here the single tableau in Istanbul